A dispatcher reported that one of his flight's crew acarsed him about a galley smoke event and diver...

Narrative:

Shortly after the shift turnover as I just finished signing into the computer and bringing up all of the applications I received an ACARS from this flight stating 'emergency declared smoke in cabin' and I responded 'rogr...thnx; are you continuing.' I never received any other messages from the flight as they were probably busy. To try and get more information I called ATC flow and the phone was busy. I called tower and asked if they knew if the flight was headed to their airport; they said yes and they were about to call for the equipment. Turns out there was smoke in the forward galley coming from a galley oven. I write this report because an hour or so after the flight landed I received a call from one of the divert airport chief pilots who during our conversation said that the crew sent some ACARS to me and that I never responded; I only received the ACARS mentioned above. I would like an answer as to why I never received any additional ACARS messages from the flight; dispatchers are here for safety and when it was time to do that I wasn't able to and the crew is out there on their own with no support.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Dispatcher reported that one of his flight's crew ACARSed him about a galley smoke event and diverted as a result; then he was unable to communicate with the aircraft the remainder of the flight.

Narrative: Shortly after the shift turnover as I just finished signing into the computer and bringing up all of the applications I received an ACARS from this flight stating 'Emergency declared smoke in cabin' and I responded 'Rogr...Thnx; Are you continuing.' I never received any other messages from the flight as they were probably busy. To try and get more information I called ATC Flow and the phone was busy. I called Tower and asked if they knew if the flight was headed to their airport; they said yes and they were about to call for the equipment. Turns out there was smoke in the forward galley coming from a galley oven. I write this report because an hour or so after the flight landed I received a call from one of the divert airport chief pilots who during our conversation said that the crew sent some ACARS to me and that I never responded; I only received the ACARS mentioned above. I would like an answer as to why I never received any additional ACARS messages from the flight; dispatchers are here for safety and when it was time to do that I wasn't able to and the crew is out there on their own with no support.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1097591
Time
Date	201306
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Commercial Fixed Wing
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Galley Furnishing
Person 1
Function	Dispatcher
Qualification	Dispatch Dispatcher
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Smoke / Fire / Fumes / Odor

A dispatcher reported that one of his flight's crew acarsed him about a galley smoke event and diverted as a result; then he was unable to communicate with the aircraft the remainder of the flight.